A month earlier, in Pentos.
Night rain hammered against the painted glass windows of the magister's mansion, every sharp patter sounding like it was landing straight on Daenerys Targaryen's heart.
She curled up on the low couch in the corner of her room, back pressed tight against the cold stone wall, as if she could borrow some of its hardness to hold herself together.
The silk she wore was a gift from Magister Illyrio—soft enough to slide like water over her fingertips, but useless against the chill. The cold seeped through the weave and into her bones, turning her fingers red. Worse than the cold was the fear working its way up from her marrow, coiling around her like vines until she was afraid to even breathe too loudly.
The words from that afternoon's meeting still rang in her ears, every syllable heavy as chain.
Illyrio had been slumped in his velvet chair, his fat fingers glittering with three ruby‑set rings as he scooped candied figs with a silver spoon. His oiled face shone with a practiced smile.
"Khal Drogo," he had purred, "the eagle of the Dothraki Sea. Do you know how large his host is? Forty thousand riders, Prince Viserys—not some alley rabble with rusty knives, but warriors who can ride the 'horses of the world' clear across the Stepstones. Once Princess Daenerys agrees, that army will follow you across the Narrow Sea and lift the Iron Throne right out from under Robert the usurper's drunken backside."
Viserys had nearly exploded, his voice rising shrill and sharp, like a cat whose tail was stepped on, wrapped in barely controlled delight.
"Forty thousand? Forty thousand blades?" he'd cried. "Enough to drag Robert's guts out and grind his bastards into meat! And that Stark fox as well—I'll make him kneel outside the Red Keep and lick the mud from my boots!"
He'd been clutching the golden cup Illyrio had given him so tightly his knuckles had gone white, purple eyes burning with madness. He never once looked toward his sister, shrinking in the corner.
No one had asked her.
No one had even glanced at the fourteen‑year‑old girl in the room, or asked whether she wanted to marry a man who lived in stories that frightened children—a warlord said to scalp his enemies and hang the skins from his saddle, to drink from their skulls like cups.
She was just a bargaining chip.
A piece of flesh wrapped in Targaryen blood, a "gift" to be traded for an army.
Like one of Illyrio's silk cushions: set out when it was useful, shoved into a dusty storeroom when it wasn't.
Daenerys twisted the hem of her nightgown without thinking.
The silk wrinkled under her fingers, creasing into tight folds like the knot in her chest.
Ever since Lynn had left, Viserys's temper had gotten worse—like a clay pot packed full of black powder, ready to blow at the slightest spark.
The morning after that dark‑haired boy disappeared, Viserys had stormed into her room still reeking of last night's wine.
He'd grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall, his nails digging into her skin hard enough to draw blood.
"You let him go!" he'd hissed. "You little idiot! He was mine, do you hear me? My gladiator! My coin! Do you have any idea how much debt I took on with Illyrio to stage that little show?"
Her face had turned purple; the edges of her vision went black.
She'd stared into her brother's eyes—those violet eyes that should have matched her own, now shot through with furious red, burning like a pair of ghost‑lights.
Targaryen eyes were supposed to be a dragon's eyes. In Viserys's gaze, there was no dragon, only hunger and madness, like a rat's eyes at the bottom of a sewer.
For a moment, she truly believed he would kill her right there against the cold stone.
"Your Grace, please," Illyrio's oily voice had floated in from the doorway, smooth as butter. "Princess Daenerys still has a far greater purpose than a mere fighter—a purpose worth far more than one gladiator."
The fat magister had waddled in, dabbing sweat from his brow with a silk handkerchief, his gaze sliding over Dany's face like he was appraising a mare at market.
Now she finally knew what that "greater purpose" was.
The rain outside hadn't stopped. Nights in Pentos were never quiet.
Somewhere far off, the harbor bell rang in ragged intervals, its sound carried on the wet wind along with drunk men's slurred songs about wars and gold across the Narrow Sea.
From deeper in the city's alleys came the crack of whips and the brief, broken screams of slaves. The cries vanished quickly beneath the roar of wind and rain.
That was Pentos: splendor and cruelty, twins joined at the hip. The sweetness of spice warehouses and the sour reek of slave sweat tangled together into a single, choking smell the Free Cities called "freedom."
Daenerys pressed her face into the crook of her arm and shut her eyes.
She wanted to sleep, to escape, to cut herself free from all of it, but fear poured over her like a cold bucket of water, making her shiver so hard her teeth knocked together.
She didn't know how long it took before exhaustion finally pulled her under.
At first, it was the same old nightmare—Viserys's fingers tightening around her neck, digging deeper and deeper; Dothraki faces looming close, painted with red ochre and streaked with blood; a curved blade slashing down, its reflection filled with her own terrified eyes—
Then a roar.
Black fire burst up from nothing, devouring every image.
This wasn't the usual blurred chaos of dreams. It was sharp, almost painfully real.
In the depths of her mind, something vast unfurled its wings.
A dragon.
It was as big as a mountain, scales as dark as frozen midnight, veined with molten gold like cooled lava.
When it spread its wings, the shadows swallowed the entire dream, and even her nightmares curled in on themselves under its presence.
Two golden, slit‑pupiled eyes burned in the darkness, like twin suns hanging in a black sky, hot and unblinking, fixed on her.
"Listen, Daenerys Targaryen."
The voice was deep, echoing, both near and impossibly far.
"Your brother's path leads only to ruin. Yours does not. Remember who you are. You are Stormborn, of the dragon's blood. One day you will command your own army. Your own dragons. You will cross the Narrow Sea and reclaim what belongs to you."
"And I… will find my own way to become strong enough. Strong enough to bend the rules of this world."
"Remember my words, Daenerys. One day, I will return. I will come back to shatter every chain for you. In the name of Lynn Auger, I swear it."
The oath echoed through the dream, over and over, like a great bell tolling in an empty hall.
The black dragon slowly dissolved, breaking apart into a cloud of dark sparks that drifted into the void and went out.
But the words remained.
They fell into her like a single ember, landing softly in her chest and beginning, very quietly, to burn.
Daenerys jolted awake.
Dawn hadn't fully broken yet. The sky over Pentos was a faint grey, the first hint of morning stretching over the sea. The rain had finally stopped. Damp air crept through the window cracks, carrying the salt stink of the harbor—and, beneath it, the faintest hint of something dry and wild, like wind over endless grass.
The Dothraki Sea.
Her future. Her prison.
She sat up, pressing a hand over her heart. It was pounding—not with panicked, rabbit‑quick fear, but with something slower and steadier, like drums setting a new rhythm.
She swung her bare feet to the floor and padded to the window, pushing open the heavy painted glass.
The cold wind slapped her cheeks and made her shiver, but it also finished dragging her fully back into herself.
Down in the courtyard, Viserys paced back and forth.
He was wrapped in the "royal" clothes Illyrio had ordered for him—a brocade robe stitched with a three‑headed dragon. The velvet was fine, the golden dragon embroidery crooked, like a dying snake.
He'd grown gaunt, cheekbones sharp, the robe hanging on him like it belonged to someone else. A child throwing on a costume too big for him and demanding to be called "king."
He clutched a short sword with a gilded hilt, hacking at the air, muttering:
"When I take back the Iron Throne, I'll plate Robert's skull in gold and drink from it! And that Stark bastard—I'll have him kneel before the Red Keep and lick the mud off my boots!"
Daenerys closed the window quietly, shutting out his ranting.
She stepped over to the tarnished brass mirror in the corner. Its frame was spotted with rust, and the reflection inside was blurred at the edges.
The girl staring back looked as fragile as paper—skin pale as milk, silver‑gold hair dry and split like old straw, falling over thin shoulders. Deep shadows beneath her violet eyes spoke of years of fear and sleepless nights.
But there was something different in those eyes now.
They weren't just pools of timid, helpless mist anymore.
Somewhere deep within, a tiny light flickered—like the first candle lit in a long, dark room. Weak, yes.
But finally, stubbornly, refusing to go out.